“There was a major prison breakout of 4,000 escaped prisoners. A few hundred women were also in that prison. “They were all raped and then they set fire to the women’s wing. They all died afterwards.” Vivian van de Perre, the deputy head of the UN peacekeeping force in Goma, described the situation.
Last week, as chaos erupted after a Rwandan-backed rebel group entered Goma, hundreds of women were raped and burned alive.
The attack took place in the women’s section of Goma’s Munzenze prison during a mass jailbreak, according to a senior UN official.
Vivian van de Perre, now stationed in Goma with thousands of UN peacekeepers deployed to protect civilians, explained that although thousands of men escaped from the prison, the women’s area was set on fire.
Photos taken shortly after the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels reached Goma show large plumes of black smoke rising from the prison on the morning of January 27.
This week, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a warning that rival armed groups in Goma are using sexual violence as a weapon of war.
Though details remain scarce, this incident appears to be the deadliest atrocity linked to the recent M23-led conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, UN peacekeepers have not been able to investigate the prison due to restrictions imposed by the M23 rebels, leaving the identities of the perpetrators unknown.
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